Gunmen kill six in Oaxaca ambush

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August 9, 2018

The vehicle that was ambushed yesterday in Oaxaca.

A five-year-old child was among the six fatalities in an ambush yesterday in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca.

A family from Peña Colorada was traveling to Huajuapan de León to sell their wares when armed civilians attacked on the road between Santa Catarina Yutandú and Tezoatlán de Segura y Luna.

Five people died at the scene and two were wounded. One of those died later in hospital.

The motive for the attack was not apparent but the Oaxaca Attorney General said it might have been due to a personal vendetta or a territorial dispute.

The latter is not uncommon in the region.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp)

Chedraui to challenge convenience stores with Súper Che, Supercito

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MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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Supermarket chain plans to open more of these. — Chedraui’s investment will create more than 6,400 jobs in Tamaulipas over five years. (Chedraui)

Supermarket chain Chedraui is looking to grab a slice of the convenience store market dominated by chains such as Oxxo and 7-Eleven by opening 30 new mini-supermarkets this year.

Branded under the names Súper Che and Supercito, the stores range in size from 240 to 930 square meters whereas Chedraui’s largest supermarkets are on average 7,000 square meters.

The publicly listed company will invest a total of 3.95 billion pesos (US $213.8 million) in 2018, which will mainly be focused on increasing sales.

The chain is also aiming to open 12 regular and súper Chedraui supermarkets by the end of the year, while some of the resources will be directed towards its interests in the United States.

In the first six months of the year, six Supercito stores and one regular supermarket opened, meaning that the bulk of the investment will be spent in the second half of 2018.

Based on comments made by company CEO José Antonio Chedraui Eguía, much larger investment will follow in the coming years.

“We could probably open 5,000 stores in Mexico in this format [Súper Che and Supercito],” he said in a telephone call with analysts.

“Just in Mexico City there is space for more than 1,000 stores . . . Consequently, we see a great growth opportunity in these two new formats we are testing.”

The mini-format stores that have already opened are located in Mexico City, Villahermosa, Veracruz and Toluca and further growth in the sector will focus on the south of the country, where Chedraui Eguía believes the company could benefit from the incoming government’s development and decentralization plans.

Chedraui first launched Súper Che in 2005 but the name soon disappeared and didn’t reappear again until 2016. The first Supercito stores opened last year.

Together they currently account for 12% of all Chedraui stores and last year contributed to 1% of the chain’s total sales.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Fed up with living in ‘a war zone,’ citizens march for peace in Cajeme, Sonora

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MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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Public takes to the streets in Cajeme. — Public takes to the streets in Ciudad Obregón.

There was an average of one murder a day last month at the hands of organized crime in Cajeme, Sonora, which has the distinction of being the only municipality in the state that is among the 50 most violent in the country.

As always, the violence is fueled by a turf war, in this case cells of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the criminal gang known as Los Salazar are believed to be behind the murders.

The escalating violence along with the death of a young man shot by state police served as triggers for a large protest at the end of last month in Ciudad Obregón.

Hundreds of citizens, including family members of victims of crime, took to the streets to demand peace and justice amid violence that bumped the municipality’s July homicides to the highest level in the past five years.

There were 32 homicide victims last month, including a man who had lined up to buy tortillas but was mistaken as a rival by a criminal gang and a well-known local lawyer who was gunned down at a shopping center in front of dozens of onlookers.

There have been 104 homicides to date this year in the southern Sonoran municipality; last year there were 198 and in 2016 there were 142.

The most prominent recent case, which sparked an even greater than usual outpouring of emotion and anger, is that of Alexis Rivera, an Uber driver who was killed by state police in Ciudad Obregón on July 22 while working to pay for his studies.

Police said Rivera was a “sicario,” or hit man, and that he had shot at them but members of his family reject the claim.

“. . . We know perfectly what he was like and the values that he had . . . he could never have been the sicario that they mention so many times in the police reports,” the deceased man’s sister, Joana Rivera, told the newspaper Milenio.

Rivera bled to death inside his car just blocks from the family home after calling his mother to ask for help.

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Joana Rivera said that early reports from the Sonora Attorney General’s office indicated that Alexis had not fired at police as claimed, adding that there is video evidence that two state police officers had planted a gun with the victim to substantiate their version of events.

In an interview with Milenio, Cajeme Mayor Faustino Chávez didn’t comment on Rivera’s case but said the fight to control the local methamphetamine trade is largely responsible for the situation.

“Its origin is related to the high consumption of drugs, mainly cristal, a drug that has penetrated a lot in the community and as a result there is a criminal chain reaction that obviously culminates in these disputes . . . over the sale of this drug,” he said.

Chávez also said there has been a lack of coordination between municipal, state and federal authorities and security forces, explaining that “there has been coordination for very short periods but it hasn’t been permanent.”

Restaurant owner Raúl Ayala, who organized the peace march, described Cajeme as a “war zone” and said that the demands of the citizens who participated in the protest had been sent to Alfonso Durazo, a fellow Sonoran whom president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tapped to be public security secretary in the new government.

The demands weren’t submitted to any current authorities, Ayala explained, because none has taken any notice of their previous pleas.

Source: Milenio (sp)

As the homicides mount in Ciudad Juárez, there is fear that history will repeat itself

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MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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José Luis Castillo at yesterday's forum wearing his canvas sign that bears a photo of his missing daughter. It reads, 'Don’t forget me. I am missing.'

The murder of 11 people in a home in Ciudad Juárez last week amid a wave of violence has triggered fear among residents that the northern border city could see a repeat of the soaring homicide rates recorded late in the last decade.

The bodies of eight men and three women were found tied up in a house in the Praderas de los Oasis neighborhood last Friday. All of the victims had been tortured and two of the women had been sexually assaulted, police said.

Three women and five men were arrested Monday in connection with the crime, and municipal police said that the suspects are members of the Aztecs, a criminal gang with ties to the Juárez cartel.

As news of the homicides and grisly photos of the crime scene started to filter out, the anxiety levels of some residents began to rise.

“It was like traveling in time and being back in 2010,” said Imelda Marrufo, director of Red Mesa de Mujeres, a women’s support group for victims of crime.

“In recent months, we’ve had [homicide] figures similar to those in 2010, days with 15 deaths on average. In May, June and July, we’ve again had mass crimes that are very similar to those of that painful past. The death of the 11 people in that house is not the first [crime of this kind] and it’s even more concerning that they were young people who authorities tend to criminalize,” she said.

There were 541 violent homicides in Ciudad Juárez in the first six months of 2018, according to a count conducted by the newspaper Milenio, an increase of 35.2% compared to the second half of last year.

While the figure is still well short of the 3,103 homicides recorded in the metropolitan area of Juárez in 2010 and the 2,643 reported in 2009, the return of mass murders has set off alarm bells in the city.

Other recent multiple homicides have included the slaying of six people in a home in the Los Alcades neighborhood in late June and the execution of five men in a barber shop later the same day.

More than half of all homicides in Chihuahua in the first half of the year occurred in the northern border city, statistics show.

Kidnappings and extortion also continue to plague Juárez, where president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and members of his security cabinet yesterday held the first of a series of planned security forums, which the incoming government has said will inform its crime-fighting strategy.

While yesterday’s town hall-style meeting was being held, a group of residents staged a parallel protest against crime.

Among the participants was the father of a 14-year-old girl who disappeared more than nine years ago in Juárez, a city that is also notorious for its high femicide rate.

José Luis Castillo told Milenio that since his daughter went missing 3,450 days ago, authorities have told him that she was probably “hanging out with the wrong crowd” at the time of her disappearance.

Every day, Castillo takes to the streets wearing a canvas sign emblazoned with the image of his daughter and the words: “Don’t forget me. I am missing.”

“For them [the authorities] it’s very easy to criminalize her or to say, ‘leave her,’ she must have been with a guy and if she hasn’t been found it’s because she doesn’t want to be found,” he said, adding “not all those murdered are involved in selling drugs, not all of the disappeared young women are prostitutes.”

Statistics compiled by a local activist group show that 23 young people have disappeared and 73 young people have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez this year. Castillo charged that “there is not a single person who has been arrested for these crimes.”

Many protesters yesterday said the increase in violence last decade, especially that of 2010, coincided with the arrival of military forces in Juárez as part of former president Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs.

Gero Fong, a member of an anti-militarization group, said that he and others were opposed to the Internal Security Law, that seeks to formalize the role of the military in law enforcement.

Future public security secretary Alfonso Durazo has said that the new government will gradually withdraw the military from public security duties as part of its security strategy that could also include an amnesty law and the legalization of some drugs.

In the meantime, citizens in Juárez can only hope that history will not repeat itself.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mazatlán a candidate for UNESCO Creative Cities designation

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César Hernández

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August 8, 2018

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Zarandeo, one of the typical Sinaloa dishes cited by the governor.

Mazatlán is seeking international recognition as a center for gastronomy through UNESCO’s Creative Cities network.

The popular tourist destination in Sinaloa is a candidate for the network in the field of gastronomy which, the governor said, is one of the state’s attractive features.

“If there’s something that sets Sinaloa apart, and we’ve said this many times, it’s gastronomy,” said Quirino Ordaz Coppel, citing shellfish called callos, a grilled fish called zarandeo, a hot and spicy shrimp dish known as aguachile, gobernador tacos and fish called cauques as examples.

“When someone talks about those dishes they’re talking about Sinaloa.”

Mayor José Joel Bouciéguez Lizárraga said the year has been a historic one for Mazatlán, with international events such as the annual travel trade fair, Tianguis Turísticos. Now, he said, the UNESCO candidacy is something else of which citizens can be proud.

The decision whether to approve Mazatlán’s admission will be made in October 2019.

The network is composed of 180 cities in 72 countries, which are designated Creative Cities in gastronomy and six other categories: crafts and folk art, design, film, literature, music and media arts.

Mexico has six cities in the network: Mexico City and Puebla in the design category, San Cristóbal de las Casas in crafts and folk art, Guadalajara for media arts, Morelia for music and Ensenada for gastronomy.

The network was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The cities work together to place creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperate actively at the international level.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Sol de Mazatlán (sp)

Puebla mayor’s wife arrested for petroleum theft

By

César Hernández

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August 8, 2018

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Federal Police have arrested the wife of a mayor in the state of Puebla on suspicion of petroleum theft in a crackdown on huachicoleros, as the thieves are known.

Police searched homes in Villa Lázaro Cárdenas in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, turning up six firearms, 10 vehicles and more than 50,000 liters of stolen fuel.

One of the houses searched is owned by Mayor Rafael Valencia Ávila. Inside, police seized several firearms, ammunition and two vehicles and arrested the mayor’s wife, Ilse Bernabé Gutiérrez, 27.

Whereabouts of the mayor, who was a target of the search, are unknown.

Police also found a room containing surveillance equipment used to monitor the area.

In another home, police arrested Omar Daniel “El Kakas” Romero Morales, 33, believed to be one of the principal petroleum thieves in the area, and his wife, Griselda Cabrera Valencia, 33.

Here they found more firearms and the stolen fuel.

A search of a third house yielded more firearms, vehicles, bulletproof vests, wrapped packages of marijuana and methamphetamine and drums containing about 300 liters of fuel.

Source: Milenio (sp), Eje Central (sp)

Body of kidnapped Puebla mayor found

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César Hernández

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August 8, 2018

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A Puebla mayor who was kidnapped July 5 has been found dead in Hidalgo.

The body of Genaro Negrete Urbano, mayor of Naupan, was found in a garbage dump in Tulancingo. Local media reports said he had been shot and killed approximately 10 days before.

Negrete was kidnapped along with his wife while traveling on the Mexico City-Tuxpan highway, but his wife was released shortly after.

There was at least one previous attack against the mayor: in December 2015 he was attacked by gunmen in Hidalgo.

Five Naupan municipal police officers were assassinated on July 28 when they were traveling between Naupan and the Mexico City-Tuxpan highway. The officers were on duty at the time but were riding in an unmarked vehicle and wearing civilian clothes.

The Puebla Attorney General said last week that there were indications the police were involved in petroleum theft, and their deaths represented a settling of scores between rival gangs. Víctor Carrancá Bourguet said there appeared to be no link between that case and the kidnapping of the mayor.

Source: Milenio (sp), Tribuna Noticias (sp)

Court absolves ex-teachers’ union boss Esther Gordillo of corruption charges

By

MND Staff

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August 8, 2018

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Former teachers’ union boss Elba Esther Gordillo has been released from house arrest after a federal court absolved her of charges of embezzlement and organized crime, her lawyer said early today.

In a statement read by Marco Antonio del Toro, Gordillo said she received notification of her “absolute and immediate freedom” at 11:30pm yesterday.

The court ruled that there weren’t sufficient grounds to proceed in the case filed against her by the federal Attorney General (PGR).

The ex-SNTE union chief, commonly known as “La Maestra” (The Teacher), spent almost five years in custody awaiting trial following her arrest in 2013 on corruption charges.

In December last year, she was granted her longtime wish to serve jail time at her home in Mexico City’s affluent Polanco neighborhood.

In the statement, Gordillo also said that she would hold a news conference on August 20 before which time she would not speak to the media.

“. . . Due to the very long situation of isolation to which I have been subjected, I need a period to privately assimilate the obvious emotions that are derived from such an important personal occurrence,” she wrote.

“Therefore, I have decided to have no contact with any national or foreign media because I consider that this stage, which places me in a new circumstance, should be . . . accepted and lived with family.”

The PGR arrested Gordillo on February 26, 2013 at the airport in Toluca, México state, when she was still at the helm of the National Educational Workers’ Syndicate (SNTE).

It alleged that she embezzled just under 2 billion pesos (US $108 million at today’s exchange rate) in union funds, part of which was funneled through a company in which Gordillo’s now-deceased mother had a majority stake.

La Maestra allegedly spent the money on payments to pilots, the purchase of real estate, reconstructive surgery in the United States, luxury goods and to pay off a credit card debt

She also allegedly deposited funds in bank accounts held in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Gordillo denied the charges and claimed that she was a political prisoner.

In May, del Toro presented evidence to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington D.C. to support that claim and to argue that she had been the victim of serious human rights violations perpetrated by the Mexican state because of her opposition to the 2013 education reforms.

Gordillo and the SNTE, which she headed for almost a quarter of a century, had previously been strong supporters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and delivered the party thousands of teachers’ votes.

However, she was expelled from the PRI in 2006 after switching allegiances to the National Action Party (PAN).

Gordillo founded the New Alliance Party in 2005, which this year was a member of the PRI-led coalition in the July 1 elections.

In response to the news of Gordillo’s freedom, two prospective cabinet members in the incoming government rejected any suggestion that her absolution was related to a supposed alliance she made with president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“The resolutions of courts and the Supreme Court are not political decisions,” said future interior secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero.

The former Supreme Court judge also told broadcaster Radio Fórmula that when del Toro had lodged an appeal in Gordillo’s case, she detected that the accusations against her were “not solid.”

Asked in a television interview whether López Obrador had a bearing on Gordillo’s release, prospective public security secretary Alfonso Durazo said: “I don’t think so, frankly I don’t think so. It’s not our time to act.”

On the same program, the president of the influential Business Coordinating Council (CCE) said that authorities must provide an explanation for the former union leader’s release.

Juan Pablo Castañón charged that it was unacceptable for institutions in Mexico to “change opinion” but not be transparent about their decision-making processes.

Source: Milenio (sp)

State, federal forces take over policing in Guaymas, Sonora

By

Tony Richards

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August 8, 2018

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A police dog checks a Guaymas police patrol car for drugs.

More than 200 federal and state security personnel assumed policing functions in the Sonora municipality of Guaymas yesterday to reinforce security following an increase in criminal activity.

State Security Secretary Adolfo García Morales said officers with the National Gendarmerie and army personnel are aiding state police in the operation, which included a surprise inspection of the municipal police force.

Officers’ weapons were checked, patrol vehicles were searched for drugs and the identities of officers verified to ensure they were on the national police roster. Vehicles in the municipal police compound were also checked to determine if any were stolen.

Soldiers and police are conducting routine street patrols and looking for retail drug trafficking.

The operation came 10 days after a video surfaced in which municipal police officers appeared to hand over three men to individuals linked to organized crime in the beachfront community of San Carlos.

Six local police officers were relieved of their duties in connection with the incident.

The United States Consulate in the state capital Hermosillo issued a security alert July 31 for the cities of Guaymas, San Carlos and Empalme, prohibiting U.S. government personnel from traveling to them due to “violent criminal activity.”

Source: El Universal (sp), Uniradio Noticias (sp)

Drivers beware: rainy season can bring enormous potholes

By

Tony Richards

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August 8, 2018

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A taxi is swallowed by a sinkhole in Veracruz.

The rainy season can be hard on roads, and hard on vehicles too when enormous potholes suddenly appear without warning, in some cases swallowing vehicles whole.

Two such sinkholes appeared yesterday, one in Veracruz and the other in the state of México.

The first captured a taxi in the Dos Caminos neighborhood of the city of Veracruz after a period of heavy rain. Floodwaters rose as high as one meter in some areas.

The second incident took place in Ecatepec, where the rear end of a water truck was swallowed by a sinkhole measuring two meters across and at least two meters deep in Granjas de Guadalupe.

Municipal officials cordoned off the area with yellow tape but residents, fearful that another accident would occur, warned the tape might not be sufficient because there is no street lighting in the area.

There were no injuries in either of the two sinkhole incidents.

Source: Milenio (sp)